Cold
by twilista
Summary: People change by changing their minds. Get ready Konoha, the Uchiha is back, but what exactly has he come to? SASUXSAKU
1. Konoha's Cold Cherry Blossom

**Authors Note: **So, this is my first fanfiction. I'm still working on my writing and most likely I'll be making some tweaks to each chapter as time goes on. If there are any mistakes in editing, feel free to inform me. I hope you enjoy this.

Disclaimer: I do NOT own any of these characters (but I wish I did). They belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

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'thoughts'

"speaking"

***FLASHBACKS***

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It was a blistering hot day as a young pink haired kunoichi stood at the training grounds. The sun beat down on her petite body as she panted, her chest moving up and down with each exhale. Her skin glistened as sweat trickled down her body. The girl's jade orbs were alert as she scanned the forest looking for any signs of movement. Abruptly, she focused her chakra into her fist and pummeled it into the ground, splitting the earth beneath her into ragged pieces. The strength of her blow revealed a blonde haired boy nestled in the ground. He gave out a frustrated grunt while the girl ran at full speed at him, with the intent to kill. She raised her fist and focused her chakra once more into her hand. Just before her attack made contact with the boy, he jumped onto the limb of the tree and plopped down.

"Awww! Come on Sakura-chan! We've been going at it all day. You need to replenish your chakra and take a break." Naruto said. "Besides, I'm in the mood for some ramen."

"Resting won't do you any good." Sakura said harshly. "Training will improve our skills."

"Sakura, you've already reached ANBU status and you're the top medic-nin in Konoha. Do you really think that a day's rest is going to kill you? Plus, you just got back from a mission yesterday. Take a break."

"_No_ Naruto." Sakura snapped. He flinched as her words reached his ears sharply. Sakura's eyes softened as she saw her best friend retreat from her words "No, it's fine Naruto. Go on to Ichiraku's without me."

"Okay then. But next time you're going with me. Dattebayo!"

Sakura smiled at Naruto's retreated figure. He was the one of the few people that she talked to let alone was nice to. He'd been with her since they were Genin and needless to say, he held a special place in her heart. Naruto was her best friend. Nothing more and nothing less which was the way she liked it. Slowly, she smoothed out the wrinkles on her shirt and went back to training. After hours of beating herself and pushing to her max, she gathered up the remnants of her energy and started walking back to her apartment. As she walked down the busy marketplace, she felt the eyes of Konoha's residents bore into her back. She was used to this. The boys gawked at her while the girls gossiped about her. One boy in particular made no attempt to hide his stare. Sakura shot him a glare and he immediately averted his eyes to the sky.

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Sakura reached towards her apartment. She brought her hand up towards the brass door knob and opened the chipped, red-painted door. Slowly, she walked inside and hung up her holster. Sakura went straight to her bathroom and started healing her wounds from her training session. A green glow emitted from her hands as they tended at her gashes and bruises.

Sakura looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was long and pink, flowing all the way down to her belly button. She no longer wore her hair in layers like she used to as a kid. It was now pin straight and clipped to the side with two black clips. Tsunade once told her that her hair style reminded her of the Fourth Hokage's wife, Kushina. Sakura's face had thinned out as she grew older and her body had gotten curvier and more womanly. The most prominent change in her were her eyes. They no longer had that glint of innocence and happiness that they once possessed. They were cold and hard just like she was. She laughed to herself. It wasn't like she expected them to be full of life and love. She lost that a while ago. She was a killer now. An assassin. Konoha's Cold Cherry Blossom as she was known as. She never showed any compassion towards anyone but Naruto or Ino. She never spoke unless spoken to.

Sakura healed her last wound and stepped out into her room. She stripped down to a white tank top with black shorts and climbed into bed. She stared up at the ceiling as the red glow of her clock changed with each passing minute. She'd been having trouble sleeping ever since her family was brutally murdered.

***FLASHBACK***

"Mom?! Dad?! I'm home!!" Sakura sang as she hung up her overcoat. She'd just gotten back from the Hokage's office and was brimming with excitement. She'd been promoted to Jounin. The pink haired beauty walked into the halls of her home.

"Okaasan? Tousan? Where are you guys anyways?"

About halfway down the hallway, Sakura felt something wet on her feet. She looked down and saw a crimson pool around her. Her eyes widened and her mind processed what could have happened. 'No. No. No.' She started running for the kitchen, screaming for her parents. "OKAASAN!! TOUSAN! WHER--" She stopped dead in her tracks. Her heart stopped beating as her eyes widened at the sight before. Her parents' corpses lay lifeless in front of her eyes. The arms of her mother were mangled and cut while her father's neck had a large deep cut. Blood decorated the once pale yellow walls of the kitchen. Furniture was toppled over and various items littered the floor. Sakura kneeled at her parents and frantically attempted to heal them. Her glowing hands tried to sow the wounds as tears pricked her eyes. After a few minutes, reality hit her. There was no way that she could heal them. They were too dismembered to even attempt to heal. Someone's loud sobs and cries of help interrupted her. The sound echoed through the empty halls, getting louder and louder. Sakura looked around to see where it came from and soon realized that they were her sobs and her cries. There was too much pain in her heart. She felt like she was going to burst as her head reeled.

"Sakura." a deep voice murmured.

Sakura looked up and saw the outline of a male figure emerged from the shadows. her eyes widened as she realized who he was. She was looking at her parents' murderer.

***END FLASHBACK***

Sakura winced as she remembered. She rolled onto her side and pulled the blanket over her body. She tried to shake off the memory and scolded herself for letting herself remember. She attempted to think of other things as she wished desperately for sleep even though she hadn't had a dream in years. The steady humming of the air condition filled the room while Sakura slowly drifted off into unconsciousness.

* * *

A small beam of light hit Sakura's face, forcing her to open her eyes. She groaned as she got out of bed. The cold air hit her like a wrecking ball. With a sharp intake of her breath, Sakura quickly changed into her regular attire: a red sleeveless top that bore the Haruno symbol on the top and white shorts with black boots that reached up mid-thigh. When she walked out of her apartment, she wasn't surprised to see Naruto there, waiting for her.

"Ohayo Sakura-chan!" Naruto said brightly. Sakura merely nodded before the two descended down the street. Sakura stayed silent (as usual) as Naruto babbled aimlessly about his date with Hinata. As she reached the entrance of the hospital, the blonde haired boy waved goodbye to her as she approached the doors of the hospital.

The automatic slider doors glided away from each other and Sakura stepped in. The familiar smell of sterilizers and non-allergenic cleaning chemicals wafted through the air. The pink haired girl stepped into the elevators and pushed the button for the 12th floor. It seemed like eternity until the silver doors opened.

"Ohayo Haruno-san" the nurse said as soon as she saw Sakura. Sakura merely looked at the brunette as she glided past and into her office. She slipped on a white coat and picked up her blue fountain pen. Swiftly, she started to sign papers and overlook patient's medical cases. After what had been an hour of writing and reading nonstop, Sakura stretched her arms out above her head and tilted her neck back, getting out the kinks that had developed there. Suddenly, her office door burst open to reveal a panting woman.

"Haruno-san! There's been an emergency on floor 13. You must come at once!" the young nurse sputtered. Sakura sprang up from her seat, making some papers jump up and flutter to the ground. She dashed towards the 13th floor.

"What's wrong with the patient?" Sakura asked as the nurse handed her her sterile gloves.

"Major damage to his internal organs, broken ribs and arm. He has also been poisoned. Shikamaru's Team had brought him back this morning in critical condition. He's hanging by a thread. Haruno-san, his name is-"

"I don't _need_ to know who he is _nor_ do I care. Get me some bowls of water and meet me at the operating table. NOW." Sakura barked. She burst through the doors to see Tsunade already operating.

"Sakura! Work on getting the poison out of his leg. Once you're done with that help me mend his wounds!" Tsunade ordered. Sakura immediately got to work. She dipped her hands into a bowl and channeled her green chakra to her palm. Carefully, she lifted up her palm up and carried a bubble of water towards the patient. She pressed her hands down close to his skin and forced her hand through his leg. The patient screamed in agony. Sakura moved her hand around, making sure that the globe of water soaked up some of the poison and lifted her hand out of the body. The once clear bubble now had little purple wisps of poison in it. Gracefully, Sakura brought her hand above an empty bowl and released the water, making it splash around the edge of the bowl.

"Keep those bowls. I'm going to need the poison to identify where it came from." Sakura ordered the nurse.

"Hai."

Sakura continued to work and extract the poison. For hours, she repeated the process until she was sure that there was no poison left in the body. Once she was done, she wiped the beads of sweat that had formed on her head.

"Sakura, I need you to help me mend his wounds." Tsunade said.

Sakura nodded and emitted her chakra once more to her hand. Moving towards the patient's rib cage, she meticulously forced the bones back to their rightful places. It was like fixing a puzzle, except this puzzle was alive and breathing.

As soon as Sakura was done, she stepped out of operating room. It had been a success. Sakura looked up at the clock and frowned. It was already 10:00 PM and she came to the hospital at 9 AM. She'd been working for 13 hours.

"Sakura, you've done well. I'm afraid you've surpassed me." the Hokage smiled. Sakura nodded. "I was wondering how you would react today, but you seemed quite calm."

Sakura gave her master a confused look.

"Did you even realize who the patient was?"

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**A/N:** Sorry this chapter was so short. I promise I'll make the next chapter longer if people end up liking this thing. Again, I apologize for my amateur-ness.

twilista

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	2. Surprise, Surprise

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own these characters, Masashi Kishimoto does.

**Chapter 2**

RECAP:

_"Sakura, you've done well. I'm afraid you've surpassed me." the Hokage smiled. Sakura nodded. "I was wondering how you would react today, but you seemed quite calm."_

_Sakura gave her master a confused look._

_"Did you even realize who the patient was?"_

_

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"No. Why would it matter? I don't care who he was." Sakura said in a monotonous tone.

"Not even if it was Uchiha Sasuke?" Tsunade waited for Sakura to burst into tears like she would when she was 12, but nothing happened. Sakura just looked into the Godaime's eyes.

"No." said Sakura. She spun on her heel and walked out of the hospital, not even bothering to glance back.

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"SAKURAAA!!!!! SAKURAAAA!!!! HEY SAKURA-CHAN! OPEN UP!! SAKU-" Naruto felt his mouth being clamped over by a pink haired kunoichi.

"Naruto. Shut. Up. It's 3 AM. What could you possibly want?" Sakura said. She released her hand from the blonde's mouth.

"Sakura-chan! Teme's back! He's back!" The words spilled out of Naruto's mouth.

"I know."

"How did you know and not tell me?! Sakura, he's _back_. After all these years, teme is BACK."

"I don't _care._ Now Naruto, will you let me go back to sleep?" Sakura was about to shut the door when a hand stopped her.

"Sakura, you can't seriously say that you don't care."

"Naruto, get your hand off my door. Now."

Naruto slowly slid his hand off the door and walked away sighing. 'What happened to you Sakura?'

"Uchiha-sama. The Hokage would like to see you in her office now."

"Hn." The man replied. His hair stuck out of his head in a strange way like it did when he was 12. It was longer, but still had an odd blackish purple color to it. His face had matured and his muscles were toned and well defined. The raven haired man wore a plain, white shirt with a small red and white symbol on the back and dark blue baggy pants. Slowly, he got up and started walking to see the Godaime.

"Uchiha Sasuke. So. You came back." Tsunade said

"Hn."

"And it was in your own will too. Shikamaru told me that _you_ had asked him _yourself _to take you back. Knowing you, you'd never ask a Leaf shinobi to bring you back, even if you were inching on your last breath. Why is that?"

Sasuke smirked. "Simple. I've killed Orochimaru and more importantly Itachi." Tsunade's eyebrows rose at this. "It was time to come back to Konoha. It's time I restored my clan." The boy nonchalantly told her.

"I'm afraid it's not that easy Uchiha. In your absence, you have been classified a missing-nin, which means that you can't just waltz back into Konoha again."

"I'm aware of this. So, what is my punishment?"

"Lucky for you, the council has decided to enable your rights to go on missions seeing that your skills are too valuable. They won't be solo missions, but you'll be assigned a squad. Don't be too happy, you will be on a 24-hour surveillance by at least two ANBU members, so it'd be in your interest to behave."

"Hn."

"Now, are your wounds feeling better? When you arrived here, I thought you weren't going to make it."

"They're fine. The medical force here has gotten stronger since I left." Sasuke replied.

"Yes it has. The top medic is actually my apprentice. She was also the one who operated on you and saved your life."

A knock on the door interrupted the conversation.

"Tsunade-sama? They're here." a voice called out from the other side of the door.

"Let them in."

The door opened to reveal a blonde haired boy pacing the hallways. His face looked up as the door swung all the way out.

"TEME! YOU CAME BACK!" Naruto ran towards Sasuke and gave him a fox-like grin.

"Dobe. I see you haven't changed." Sasuke smirked.

"I heard you finally got your revenge."

"Hn."

"Same teme as always." Naruto teased.

Tsunade stood there smiling. It was amazing how quick the two got back to where they left off. As friends.

"Sakura, aren't you going to say something to your old teammate?" Tsunade asked.

Sasuke looked around the room to see a pink haired kunoichi with her arms crossed and back leaning against the wall. She looked…bored.

The raven haired boy was shocked that he didn't hear or see her come in. How could he not sense her? His pain killers were probably kicking in.

Sasuke saw that she had lost all her baby fat and was now a curvier, leaner woman. Her hair was now pin-straight and flowing as the wind from the windows blew against her face. She was beautiful, he'd admit that, but there was something.... off.... about her. It was like she wasn't the same Sakura that he had left behind all those years ago.

"I'm going to go train." Sakura finally responded.

"Sakura-chan! Sasuke-teme JUST came back. At least say hi!" Naruto whined.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to stay for just a few more minutes, Sakura." The Hokage ordered. "Since Sasuke's return, it means that he will need to be reassigned to a team. Sakura, Naruto, I ensure that you will make Sasuke welcome in your squad again."

"Just like old times teme, ne?" Naruto said while elbowing his best friend.

Sasuke noted that Sakura rolled her eyes when she heard this. He thought that she'd be jumping for joy like she did when they were assigned their Genin teams at the Academy. She looked.... annoyed. What happened to happy-go-lucky Sakura?

"If we're done talking here, then I am going to leave." Sakura said as she turned on her heel and exited with grace.

Naruto and Tsunade sighed. Sasuke threw them a confused look.

"Sakura's been this way since her parents were murdered. It happened about three years after you left. She found her parents just before they slipped away, but she couldn't save them. No one could." Naruto said grimly."The murderer got away and now Sakura's striving each day to get revenge. If I ever find that son of a bitch, he'd be dead in a heartbeat for what he has done to Sakura. He took her away from me." Naruto's fists and teeth clenched. His body became rigid. "Sakura goes out and beats herself up everyday just to get stronger now. She felt that if she couldn't save her parents then she was too weak to even consider to be a kunoichi. "Naruto shook his head as he spoke."Now, she's the strongest female this village has ever seen yet she's training from sun up to sun down. She's known around the world as Konoha's Cold Cherry Blossom. Ironically, Sakura is our village's top medic-nin and our top assassin." Sasuke was shocked to hear this. The Sakura he knew hated the thought of people dying. It was why he always thought she was never cut out to be a kunoichi.

"The worst part is she never speaks to anyone but me and Ino. She lost her spark, her life. All because of what happened." Naruto let out a heavy sigh.

Tsunade put a hand on Naruto's shoulder. "Naruto, why don't you take Sasuke back to his home? I'm sure he's had a long day." Tsunade said softly.

"Yeah, sure." Naruto laughed. "Come on Teme. I'm sure you're excited to go back to your home after all these years." And just like that, Naruto snapped back to being his regular self. Amazing.

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Sasuke approached his home. It had been years since he last stepped on these floorboards. He pushed through and to his surprise, everything looked exactly how he had left it. Even his old Team 7 photo was still flipped over on his desk. Why wasn't anything dusty? Years of absence usually meant the growth of dust bunnies and musty air.

"You must be wondering why everything is clean. Your apartment was a good place to give Genin D-rank missions. They cleaned this place every so often." Naruto told him. "Anyways, everything here still works, but you're gonna need food."

"Hn."

"Why don't we go to Ichiraku's?" The blonde's face lit up in excitement as he spoke these words. "Come on Sasuke-teme, everyone is going to be excited to see you!" Naruto grabbed Sasuke's arm, but not without a sharp, annoyed glare from Sasuke.

The two men arrived at the small ramen shop after hopping rooftop to rooftop. A sweet smell of broth enveloped them. Pushing aside the signs, they entered the restaurant. Sasuke's eyes immediately went to the far left corner. Sitting on a stool at the end was a pink haired girl, but she wasn't alone. Next to her sat a smiling boy.

_'Who the hell is that?'_

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**A/N: **This chapter is pretty short too. I'm sorry. I'll make the next ones more exciting and longer. I promise.


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